Positive Numbers: Wild (Last Week: -3). Well, looky here! A perfect 4-0 record this week with wins over Edmonton, St. Louis, Florida and, maybe most impressive at all, at Nashville. That gives the Wild a six-game winning streak and a 17-12 record, and their 38 points put them tied for second-best in the Western Conference. You know, this Eric Staal guy, who scored two goals in beating the Predators last (Thursday) night and now has nine goals in the season, could be The Free Agent Pick-Up Of The Year.
Can they keep this up? They host The Bastard Winnipeg Jets and The Bastard Quebec Nordiques, then play at Montreal Thursday in the first of two road games in as many days.
#0: Gopher wrestling (Re-Entry!). Well, looky here!! A program suddenly thrust into turmoil after the man who elevated it to greatness was fired, and coming off a humiliation at home to Oklahoma St. and a fourth-place finish at the Cliff Keen Invitational, the Gopher grapplers began B1G play by going to the state of Michigan and beating Michigan St. and Michigan. The defeat of the Wolverines Sunday is really noteworthy because they were ranked tenth at the time. Done 12-3 through four matches, the U. ripped off five wins in a row. The middle three gave bonus points -- two Major Decisions followed by a Technical Fall courtesy of sixth-ranked Michael Kroells at 285 lbs. That vaulted them into a ten-point lead, and even though 17th-ranked Mitch McKee got Falled by Michigan's Stevan Micic (ranked eighth in the country at 133) in the last match of the dual, the U. escaped Ann Arbor with a 22-18 upset. That is why I put them ahead of the Gopher men's hockey and basketball teams as well as the Vikings.
They're off until the Southern Scuffle on New Year's Day.
#-1: Gopher men's hockey (Last Week: -4). Well, looky here!!! I don't know how good Michigan St. is supposed to be, but whenever you can go to East Lansing and sweep the Spartans by matching 4-2 results (the first time the U. has swept a series at Michigan St.), that has to be good, right? Justin Kloos is the reigning conference First Star Of The Week, and not only that, was named the Third Star Of The Week by the NCAA, which is an even bigger deal as well as something I didn't know the NCAA did until I just looked it up! Tyler Sheehy also was lauded by the Big Ten by being named its Third Star Of The Week.
After an 8-3 drubbing at home to Ohio St., having a 3-1 conference record going into their break isn't the worst thing in the world. They are back in action on the 30th for the start of the 26th Annual Mariucci Classic as they face Mercyhurst. I bought tickets to this game, as well as the Alabama-Huntsville-UMass game that afternoon, at the State Fair.
#-2: Gopher men's basketball (Last Week: -2). Yes, this squad went 3-0 this week. But those wins were over Georgia Southern, Northern Illinois and Long Island-Brooklyn -- bodybag games in concept if not in name. Nominally they should be ahead of the Gopher men's hockey and wrestling teams, but two wins on the road against a name school are much more impressive than three at home vs. non-BcS clubs. Saying that, better that they won than lost.
They go on their winter/finals break before playing a deceptively good low-major team, Arkansas St., Friday the 23rd.
#-3: Vikings (Re-Entry!). There's a guy in the alumni club I spar with over politics. He's a Jew who likes Trump; go figure. Anyway, we are both die-hard sports fans, and we started talking about the Vikings. He thinks that it's possible they could win their final four games, and he felt as though 10-6 (and we spoke about this before they lost to Dallas because we assumed the Cowboys would beat them; of course, we were right) would get the squad into the playoffs. I agreed with him.
Just thought about putting that vignette into the WMNSS just because.
The Vikes' fading playoff hopes were revived with a 25-16 win over the Jacksonville Jaguars that nevertheless still exposed the season-long woes with the offense. The Vikes' mustered, I think, only four Field Goals to take a 12-0 lead. And the listless Jags were leading entering the fourth quarter, 16-12, before the Vikings erupted with 13 points. (As much as Adam Thielen has announced himself a player in the NFL, Kyle Rudolph may be the most dependable receiver on the team.) If they had lost -- oh, for crissake, they would have caught so much hell in Minnesota. Still, they're on the outside looking in; it appears as though they would have to hope for Tampa Bay, Washington and Green Bay to lose a couple times in order for them to get into the playoffs. And again, that's assuming they run the table.
Next week's game in Lambeau is starting to look like an eliminator game. But first, they have to hold serve at home against the Indianapolis Colts Sunday. That team looks like shit on defense, but so do the Vikings on offense. Defensively, Minnesota is quite banged up but they're still very effective. But so are The Bastard Baltimore Colts' offense -- well, save for that offensive line. I'll be at this game to work (assuming I don't freeze from the cold or die after slipping off the highway due to snow) and I want to see the battles of strength vs. strength and weakness vs. weakness.
#-4: Gopher women's basketball (Last Week: -1). I appreciate the continuing scheduling of the top teams in women's b-ball. I really do. Yet I see that the Goofs went into eighth-ranked (were they ranked eighth?) South Carolina and got their asses kicked Sunday, 98-58. The only good that came of that is that they, and we, found out how good they were. Not to put too fine a point on it, they're not that good. But hey, they did come back home and beat Belmont Wednesday ... by a point, 75-74.
They host their final tune-up in the non-con Thursday against Kent St.
#-5: Timberwolves (Last Week: -5). Britt Robson of MinnPost posted last Friday about how atrociously shitty the Woofie Dogs have been on the defensive end. Taking that development along with remembering that this organization hired Tom Thibodeau because of his defensive prowess makes the continuing problems with this team -- which suffered through a 1-2 week, even though that one win was over Thibs's old team, the Chicago Bulls, and was in Chicago -- all the more alarming.
That victory was on Tuesday. This squad is off till Saturday, when they face Houston. They host Phoenix Monday, then go to Atlanta Wednesday.
#-Infinity: Gopher volleyball (Last Week: 0). You know, when I wrote last week's survey, I forgot that the Final Four kicks off on a Thursday and not on a Friday. Therefore, if the Gophers were to make it out of Regionals (which they did, pipping Missouri in four sets and then sweeping UCLA), their national semifinal game would be eligible for this week's WMNSS.
And because of that, they wind up at the very bottom of this long list as a bow to their season, an upset four-set loss to volleyball nemesis Stanford. I didn't watch the game and I'm not really interested in reading into why they lost because, hey, they fucking lost to a lower seed and, more importantly, they lost, period. But I think I saw in passing that, like, the Cardinal blocked a lot.
Look, making back-to-back Final Fours, the fifth time the program has done it, is a hell of a thing. But by seed, they should have reached the title game. In fact, they looked good enough to win the championship for the first time ever. But they got beat by the sixth-seeded Cardinal, a team that, at least on paper, the Goofs should have beat. I don't think I need to take this well, and it doesn't matter how good this team was and how successful this season was.
Per tradition, I plan on going to Hooters to watch the NCAA championship game, which will pit Stanford against another vaunted nemesis for Gopher volleyball and another school I have reason to hate, Texas. (The Longhorns, seeded fourth, not only upset the top-seeded team in the tourney, Nebraska, they swept them. How does the fuck does that happen?!) But I won't particularly like seeing two teams I have personal animosity for play for a title. Maybe I'll just take pleasure in seeing one of them lose.
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